Goats, kids, goats, kids, and more goats and kids!

Wow a lot has happened since the last blog post. We had quite the kidding season. We bred 8 does and out of those 8, we ended up with 24 kids. One set of twins, six sets of triplets and one set of quads!! All in all we had 17 bucklings, 6 doelings, and one hermaphrodite. We sent one mama to the butcher after her kids were weaned because she is a dairy goat that did not produce the dairy needed to raise her kids and her teats were like milking almonds. No thanks! To freezer camp she went! We had 13 babies born in February (that was a little rough), 6 kids in March, 3 lambs born in April, 3 kids in May and 2 kids in June. A lot of late nights and freezing temps but I did have a great time hanging out with my daughters at 2 am in the barn.

The six doelings that were born, are here to stay for the mean time. We are going to see how they grow and hopefully their sires have made some improvements with their overall conformation, teat placement, milk production etc... As far as the bucklings, the majority will be headed to freezer camp this fall. We are hanging on to a couple to see how they grow. It can be hard deciding who to keep, butcher and sell. We do not sell anything we wouldn't want to keep ourselves, unless someone is specifically looking for pet quality and not necessarily breed/dairy quality. We are continuing to work hard to improve our herd. We know the struggle to not have quality or milk quantity and wouldn't want to pass that on to others.

Eventually as our herd improves, we would like to start selling does that are already trained on the stand for milking and that are proven with well attached udders, good mothers, and great milk production. Follow our journey through the blood, sweat and tears. It's not an easy task, but definitely builds character and work ethics. My children are amazing helpers and work right alongside me and I could not do it without their help.

We have had a couple unfortunate instances where we lost 2 of our goats this year. We lost our best doe quickly and so very unexpected. We have added 3 does and 3 bucks from other homesteads, a couple locally here in Michigan and a trip to Kentucky. More pastures have been fenced in, a new milking parlor is in the works, and we have been busy with a lot of other projects as well, so stay tuned for many more blog posts and more consistency. Enjoy the pictures from the past few months.

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